


The Faded

by snsoldier



Series: Last Bot Standing [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One, Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Major character death - Freeform, Multi, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-04-03 06:26:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4090456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snsoldier/pseuds/snsoldier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life has returned to normal after The Switch and things are looking up for Blades until a series of unfortunate events leads to his capture by the Decepticons. Heatwave rushes to his rescue only to find himself pressured into some decisions that have disastrous consequences for Team Prime (with a generous sprinkling of G1 to fill in the ranks)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Blades jumped at the happy trilling chirps. He hadn't heard Bumblebee enter the small waiting room outside of the medical bay, not that he minded in the slightest. He smiled gleefully up at the yellow bot. "I passed!" He squealed. Boulder had been quizzing him for weeks now on the pre-testing for field medic in between his followup visits with Ratchet and Perceptor, and even then, Blades had been so nervous going to Jasper to complete Ratchet's assessment that he very nearly lost control of his tank stepping through the ground bridge.

Bee gave him a thumbs up and chirped gleefully.

"That's easy for you to say, but I sure didn't know if I could do it... I was really worried! I mean there's just so much information you have to assimilate and then you have to be able to apply it on top of all that... It's not useful to anyone if you know the mechanics but then can't actually apply them usefully." Blades chattered on nervously as he followed Bee out of the room and down the hall. High strung as he already was, there was just no unwinding him right now.

Raf looked up from the table where he was hunched over his homework assignments for the next day and grinned as the two bots entered the common room that everyone used for relaxation. "Congrats!"

Blades stopped mid-sentence and eyed the little human suspiciously. "How would you know if I passed or not?"

"Bee said you would. He said it would be a breeze for a bot as smart as you." The boy replied nonchalantly, his nose already back in his book.

"Oh... oh... Well then... thank you..." Blades mumbled, caught off guard by the second-hand compliment. Bee shrugged and rubbed the back of his helm, his embarrassment at Raf's comment completely unnoticed by the coptor-bot.

"So..." Blades paused, keenly aware of the differences in the room as compared to just a few weeks prior, when his perspective had been on a decidedly lower scale with a group of far tenser bots for company. It was strange to notice people behaving awkwardly around him because they remembered dealing with him under circumstances that he couldn't himself remember for the most part. "What _do_ you do around here when there's no... well... war going on... I guess."

Bumblebee had started to chirp a series of bleeps in response when the twins barged unceremoniously into the room, half falling upon one another as they jostled for who would lead their impromptu fanfare. In the end, Sunstreaker won, the deathly glowers he emanated as his more rambunctious brother came dangerously close to marring his finish having the desired effect of giving him the upper hand.

"It's time..." Sunstreaker moaned ominously.

"To go..." Sideswipe picked up.

"INTO THE MIST!!!" The duo hollered in unison, grinning wildly at the two bots, their transient spat over who would be first to announce the news already forgotten.

Blades stiffened in horror as Bee chirped in excitement and Raf and Miko both leapt up from the coffee table with an equally excited cheer.

"Are you all _INSANE_?! Did you not see that movie? Horrible, _unspeakable_ , horrific things happened to everyone who went into the mist!" His helm swung around to stare at each one of them in absolute shock as his warnings fell on ears too filled with elation to notice his omens of impending and most certain doom. "None of them ever came back!"

The twins blinked for a moment, then burst out laughing.

"Not the _movie_ mist... The mist off the lake. When it rolls out super thick like this it masks and muffles everything. It's hard to see, even harder to hear, and an absolute blast to go out and play in! Miko and Raf came up with this game that's um... what did you say it was like again?"

Raf laughed. "It's mostly like hide and seek, but we added a kind of laser tag element to it. We split into two teams, and the point is to sneak up on someone from the other team in the mist. There's no transforming, no comm, and you have to turn on your sensor dampers. The team with the most tags when it starts to lift wins. Miko named it Empties Hunt because when the mechs first start to appear through the mist they look like really creepy wrecks and are all white and ghostly and stuff."

"So... No one can see anyone else and we're all trying to catch each other in mist that makes us look like zombie monsters..." Blades drawled out slowly, obviously suspicious as to how this could ever be considered fun. Not to mention he had this gnawing feeling at the back of his processor that no one in the movie mist had probably thought twice about _that_ mist initially either. "How do you two play without getting squished since no one can see?"

Miko giggled. "Duh! We totally ride along of course! Come on Blades, we'll be your team mates this time! Since you can't use your radios like at all during the game and Bee won't be able to tell you anything without you both getting caught, we can tell you how to play and give you all the best tips!"

"Yes, come on! Hurry up before it starts to lift!"

Blades looked anxiously from the two over-excited Lamborghini bots anxiously dancing by the hanger door, to the two children doing their best puppy dog eyes up at him, to Bee's cheerful nod of agreement.

"Why do I feel like I'm going to regret this?" Blades sighed as he transformed and let the two excited children clamber in. Bee chirped in response and shrugged as Blades huffily transformed back into his root mode.

"I do _not_ think _everything_ is a bad idea! Just most things and so far almost always with very good reason." He grumbled as he followed his friend out into the dense white fog. The thick white mist hung heavy in the air, and Blades shivered despite himself. They had been right about one thing: it was definitely creepy. Bee was only a few feet in front of him and his yellow and black frame was shrouded by the grey mist and looked more like one of the large rocks off of the Griffin Rock bay. He couldn't even tell Bee was yellow anymore, and that brilliant shade of cadmium was rather hard to blot out. The heavy clumping of their pedes was muffled by the damp ground, and as the lights of the base disappeared behind them, Blades was keenly aware of just how big this fog made the Nevada desert seem, and how small he felt in it.

"Bee-"

"Shhh! You can't talk out loud Blades! Wheeljack will catch you for sure if you do! He's on the twins' team and you can totally bet your cookies that he's already out here hiding somewhere..." Miko hissed back.

"I don't have any cookies, so I couldn't bet them even if I wanted too." Blades' comm screen flickered to life in his cockpit and his virtual image made a face at the two children. "And why are we whispering in here too then? My dome is soundproof."

Miko and Raf giggled, although why they thought that the fact that his dome was soundproof was funny was beyond him. Raf leaned forward to peer out the glass dome, and used one hand to push his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose as he did so. 

"Because it's just more fun.... I thought you liked all those scary movies? This is like being in one, except you know that even if you get caught, it's not going to be by some lunatic with a chainsaw or something."

"No... _I_ get to get caught by some wrecker with a plasma grenade... I think I would rather have the lunatic with the chainsaw, thank you very much. At least I can escape from the lunatic with the chainsaw with most of my limbs still intact... Have you ever seen what escapes from a plasma grenade? Of course not. Why? Because _nothing_ escapes from a plasma grenade."

"He does make a very valid point." Raf conceded with a rueful shrug at Miko, then hopped up and down on the seat. "The signal! There Blades! Did you see how Bee just held up his left hand and waved right? He thinks he sees one of them up ahead on the left, and wants you to circle around to the right."

"Wait... no one said anything about splitting up!" But the grey mass had already vanished stealthily into the mists.

"Hurry Blades..." Miko chimed in, leaning up against his dash. "Try and crouch low to the ground... It makes you look more like terrain than a bot... And try to be extra quiet! A bit more to the left..."

Blades cringed as he crouched low to the ground and slowly shuffled forward as he was instructed, silently praying to Primus all the while that there wouldn't be a horrific squeal of metal being wrenched apart followed by Bee's disembodied arm flying out at him from nowhere. The two children were holding their breath and dancing around as much as his cockpit would allow, their eyes peeled wide to try and catch the first sign of any movement in the mists.

"There! Don't move!" Miko squealed and pointed as Blades dropped even lower to the ground and froze.

"Maybe it's just Bumblebee?" The bot hissed nervously.

"Ummm..."

"No. The frame is too wide on the top to be Bee." Raf whispered. "It might be Roadblock..."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Roadblock is on our team so we wouldn't get a point for tagging him." Miko whispered as she squinted at the slow movements in the mist. "But it's too tapered at the waist to be Roadblock."

"It's definitely not Wheeljack or Mirage..."

"OOooOOooh! It's Smokescreen! I'm sure of it! That's totally his door wing!" Miko squealed. "Wait... the second he turns Blades, you have to rush and tag him! He's on team twins, but don't move now or he'll see you for sure!"

"Can't we just let Bumblebee..."

"We'll get a point for each of you tagging him though! And then he's not allowed to tag either of you for the next two minutes."

"How come?"

"So everybot has time to reposition, like duh." Miko laughed. "Otherwise two bots could just stand in place smacking each other back and forth the entire time."

"Standing in one place sounds like a very good idea to me." Blades' visual screen made another face at the two children. He was beginning to think they were even more reckless at spark than those two frontliner lunatics were.

"He's turning... wait... wait..." Raf held his breath and intently watched the faint outline in the fog for signs of movement. "NOW!"

Stifling a nervous whimper, Blades lunged forward, his hand stretched out to tap the back of the bot in front of him, recoiling reflexively almost immediately after making contact. The two kids had been right though, the grey outline had turned out to be the blue bot after all.

"Slag it! Beginner's luck!" Smokescreen laughed, then remembered who Blades had been shadowing his entire visit and whirled about to try and counter Bee's tag.

An astro-second too late.

Bee's posture was one of smug satisfaction as he high-fived Blades and patted an irked Smokescreen on the shoulder.

"Night's not over yet, sparklings." He laughed in a barely audible whisper as he turned and vanished back into the mist. Blade's indignant reply was silenced by Bee's hand.

"No talking, remember Blades? If you or Bee make a noise, the other team will know where to find you." Miko chided. "Come on now, let's regroup and get another one!"

Bee waved cheerfully, and stepped back into the mists. Blades was about to follow but the children stopped him. Raf pointed out to the right of where Bee had vanished. "Over that way Blades. I think the crag rock formations are that way. It's a great place to stake out."

"But... then we'll _really_ be split up..."

"Not really Blades. We're both right here with you. You really _do_ worry about everything don't you?" Miko laughed.

"And you really _don't_ worry about anything, don't _you_? There's no way you don't get into heaps of trouble that way."

"Oh, she does." Raf replied, ducking Miko's feigned slap of irritation. "But Bulkhead always gets her out of it so she still doesn't appreciate the potential consequences. Blades a little more to the left... I think... Yes there they are. Careful now, sometimes Jazz likes to use them too. But he's horrible at staying quiet when he's not on a mission."

"Is he on our team or their team?"

"Their team. Looks clear though."

Blades sidled up against the rocks and peered about the mist. "So, now we just wait?"

"Yup. Just look for any type of movement. And try not to move yourself. It's not as exciting as actually hunting in the mist is, but this is the best position to learn the game from. Just about every bot will pass us here at some point tonight so you'll get a really good feel for what everyone looks like instead of just following Bee around."

"Ok." The coptor hunkered down low to the ground and the three sat quietly watching the fog swirl about them for a few minutes. It was Raf who broke the silence first.

"Hey Blades, about you and Bee..." Raf coughed, and pushed his glasses up again. "How friendly are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well... um... Bee talks about you after visiting Maine... but he doesn't really mention the rest of your team mates by name, so..."

"He wants to know if he's your _botfriend_ , geez Raf just come out and say it."

Blades' comm screen stuttered and flickered with static before his image turned several shades of embarrassment. "Wait... whaaaat?"

"Oh come on Blades, you can tell us! Bee is too shy to ever own up to it even to Raf."

"Bumblebee is... shy?!"

The two children burst out in a fit of deranged laughter, and for a second the bot wasn't sure if they were laughing at him, Bumblebee, or if they had just gone stark mad. 

"You didn't know? How could you not notice!" Miko howled with mirth. "I mean, WOW! Of _course_ Bee is shy. I mean wouldn't you totally be if a psycho ripped off half your face and your vocalizer? I mean even bots must feel pretty self-conscious about something as disfiguring as that. It's not something you can really ever forget since every time he has to say something it has to be in Universal Tone instead of actual words."

"Well yeah I know that but... Why would you think he and I...?"

"I was just wondering... I mean Bee doesn't talk about the other bots the way he talks about you so... I just thought maybe, you know."

"He talks about _me_...?"

"Wow you really didn't-"

Miko's voice was cut off as a metal hand clamped onto Blades' shoulder, and the bot leapt into the air with a startled squeak.

"Why _hello there_ pretty bot..."

Blades didn't have time to process whether he knew the voice or not. A surge of electricity jolted through his system, and the children's frightened cries grew distant and silent as he offlined and slumped forward.


	2. Chapter 2

  
_"It was a fraggin field test..."_  
  
Boulder and Chase, although summoned with Heatwave, had not followed their team leader into the conference room their Prime had immediately ushered him into and had instead hung back with the other Autobots. If it made them uncomfortable to be surrounded by mechs they did not know while their own team leader could be heard screaming heated epithets at the Prime they gave no sign other than an apologetic cringe when a particularly loud obscenity made it through to them. The other members of Team Prime gathered about in the common area shuffled uneasily on their pedes as snippets of muffled yelling made it back to them through the heavy cast-iron doors that sealed away the members of command from the rest of them.  
  
_"SCRAP THAT!"_  
  
To his team mates deep regret, Heatwave was definitely staying true to his name right now, and was raging fiercer than most of the fires he was known for fighting, freely using any and every bit of foul language programmed into his processor with a complete and total disregard for the rank and standing of the mech he was addressing. While frightening to be sure, it was also awe inspiring to know, deep in their sparks, that this is what Heatwave would have done for either of them as well.  
  
_"You rust-headed scraplet! Don't even try..."_  
  
His team.  
  
His responsibility.  
  
Primus save the mech that came in between, even if it was the Prime himself.  
  
_"No comm... I don't give a frag how..."_  
  
They had barely been given enough time for their optics to refocus after the dizzying effects of the ground bridge when the brisk red and white security mech had all but seized Heatwave's arm and dragged him into the separate room, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the fire truck was nearly twice his size and easily three times his bulk. The green and blue mechs had stared at one another in complete confusion, then about them at the very subdued and silent members of Prime's team that they had not yet met, until those first curses had vibrated through them down to their very struts.  
  
_"Slag you straight to the rust-forsaken Unmaker before..."_  
  
It wasn't until it was apparent to them all that the screaming and yelling had only just begun and would not be ending any time soon that Bumblebee had shamefully filled the two startled bots in on the reason behind it.  
  
They had lost Blades.  
  
_"How... for Pit's sake how..."_  
  
Boulder and Chase had just stared incredulously at their idol turned friend as the yellow bot hung his head, clearly ashamed by his admission. The handful of other bots in the room looked equally chagrined, but were understandably nowhere near as dejectedly crestfallen as the yellow scout was. The story slowly unravelled itself as it came out in halting bits and pieces, strung out across multiple points of view, but they did eventually grasp that somehow, Blades had been following Bee outside while they were playing some sort of game.  
  
Then suddenly he wasn't.  
  
_"Just answer the bolted question..."_  
  
Worse still to the two mechs, two of Team Prime's human team mates had been with him when he had vanished into thin air, and they were scarcely any older than Cody was. Knowing what they themselves would do to protect Cody from any sort of harm clutched coldly at their sparks and reminded them just how far Blades would himself go to protect two such precious charges from falling into harm's way. Had something happened to him because he had been trying to protect them? Had he abandoned his own fate in despair over having failed to protect them?  
  
_"Shut it you half-sparked toaster-oven..."_  
  
But still, how did you lose a bot? It wasn't like when they would happen upon Graham wandering near-sightedly about the house asking if anyone had seen his glasses, or Kade pissing and moaning to everyone that would listen that someone had moved his keys and hidden them deliberately from him. Those were tiny objects even by human standards, and this was a two-story tall bot they were talking about, in the middle of a desert with very little in the way of ground coverage or natural terrain that could provide decent cover for such a mech to hide behind.  
  
_"We didn't need two-bit trackers!"_  
  
Boulder cringed as a surge of guilt charged through his core and crackled in his lower tank with an electric tingle of despair. That aspect of their gear was his fault really. After Chase had been lost for over a day in a mining shaft, he really should have thought to upgrade their comm systems with military grade emergency gps trackers. They were so easy to get ahold of, even easier to install, and the security benefits of always knowing where you needed to be to provide help in an instant far outweighed privacy concerns. If he'd only done that, maybe this would never have happened at all and they all wouldn't be standing here in a knotted up panic fretting over what may have happened.  
  
_"I don't give a prayer to the pit what..."_  
  
The ground bridge flared to life behind them once again with a low staticky roar that buzzed in their audials and they all turned as one to stare as another bot stepped though: a mud-spattered off roader whose finish had most definitely seen better days than this one. The look on the green jeep's faceplates was strained to begin with, and his struts only stiffened more as he took in the sight of the two overwhelmed rescue bots in the center of the room. The two strangers likely missed it, but all of the gathered Autobots saw the minute stiffening of his shoulders and the faint tightening of his dingy armor about his frame.  
  
"Hound did you-"  
  
With a curt wave from the tracker, Jazz went silent, his optics flashing briefly under his visor in silent understanding, while the rest of the room all watched tensely as the scout walked across the floor and rapped on the door. The yelling stopped and an unnatural hush fell over them as the door opened and the red and white security mech peered suspiciously out through a tiny crack. Seeing Hound, he widened the door just far enough for the two strangers to notice that the finish of his sensory horns seemed strangely dingy compared to what it had been mere breems prior. After a brief exchange that none of their audials was able to pick up on, Red Alert stepped aside, pulled Hound into the room, and closed the door behind them with a solid click.  
  
"It's... not good, is it?" Boulder's deep voice murmured softly, and his optics stared beseechingly over at the other bots for reassurance, even though he already knew deep in his spark chamber that none would be forthcoming no matter how his optics pleaded otherwise. Perhaps even more frightening to him was the absolute and total silence that now came from the other room.  
  
"He's not deactivated." Sideswipe replied bluntly with all the tact he was known for lacking. The sleek red frontliner was already rummaging about in his subspace taking inventory of what he had on him with the unnervingly chill efficiency of someone who had prepped for these missions enough times to know what he needed, what he didn't, and what his odds of success would be. "He wouldn't have looked so grim if he was and he probably would've just told you instead of letting you continue to worry. But you can bet your credit chips that he's not somewhere he wants to be or that it will be someplace easy for us to get into."  
  
"You believe he has been taken captive by the Decepticons?" Even Chase was unable to keep the sharpness out off his normally professional monotone. Whether it was due to anger, fear, or just sheer incredulity though was uncertain to the large green mech who stood beside him. "What purpose would that potentially serve them? Blades would be unable to provide any information of even remote tactical or strategic value to them. We were assigned to our team patrol and placed into the stasis pods on our vessel prior to their uprising and have not been privy to Autobot information and actions that involved them since."  
  
"We should go gear up." Sunstreaker replied, pointedly ignoring Chase's questions. Every member of team Prime was keenly aware of the fact that the rescue bots had absolutely no intel of any value to Megatron. They also knew that just as soon as the Decepticons realized that, they wouldn't see any reason to keep one around when they could use him as a very public example instead. That knowledge made them all painfully aware of the fact that the Autobot brig stood vacant below them which meant there would be no negotiating a trade to exchange a seeker's freedom for the rescue bot's.  
  
"We don't know for sure it was the 'cons yet either mechs." Jazz added sagely. His presence had been a surprise to the Autobots who had thought he would have been in the conference room with their Prime, until they noticed the subtle yet intense scrutiny he observed the other two new arrivals with. Then it clicked that he was here to provide the command element to their side of the door in the event that they had taken the bits and pieces of news poorly. The white mech stood firm before them all and his azure visor flared authoritatively.  
  
"Not tha ah'm suggestin' that NEST would be much better, but there are human organizations out there tha either ain't all tha fond o' us o' are just o'erly fond o' our tech. Get yer gear together, check yer ammo, stock yer emergency kits, and let's show team RB tha team OP can kick not only con aft a' tha drop o' a gasket, but we can sure as Pit bring our missin' mech home too."  
  
His words were met with the excited revs of engines that were well versed in the adrenaline of warfare, and as his mechs rapidly and efficiently tore through their subspaces and darted about to piece together any missing supplies, the saboteur clapped a hand on each of the two remaining bots shoulders in silent reassurance.  
  
"Once Red 'n' Prime finish their assessments tha order will come to roll out. Tha faster we get in, the better our chances o' gettin' him out. Ah can't promise he won't be unhurt, but Ah sure as Pit can promise tha those cons will be, 'n' we won't let anythin' and Ah mean _anythin'_ mechs, stop us from gettin' ta him."  
  
Boulder and Chase locked optics silently for several breems before finally, Boulder managed a hesitant smile and Chase nodded. Neither said anything, either to each other or to Prime's current second in command. Neither trusted their vocalizer to do so in a way that wouldn't make the other feel worse.  
  
Unknown to the other, they both databurst a silent prayer to Primus into the void that Jazz's promises would hold true, for Blades' sake.

 

* * *

  


There was a low buzz humming persistently in his audials when they finally booted up with minimal functionality. Deep and dark, it resonated from somewhere that was both far and near and everywhere all at once. Was it in the room? Was it his processor? His sensor grid was still down and his still fuzzy consciousness glared in irritation at the dark buzzing. He could feel the vibrations all the way to his spark chamber, but he couldn't quite place where it was coming from.  
  
Or where he was coming from for that matter.  
  
As the fog lifted from his processor, he slowly realized that it was more than just his sensor grid that was offline. His entire neural net was locked down somehow, and it was only his very basic systems that were slowly booting up one by one. It was eerie to have such intense sensory blindness when you were used to having a near constant flow of data perpetually flooding in.  
  
Which was ironic really, that he was genuinely _annoyed_ by the lack of sensory input, seeing as how when he had first had the misfortune of being assigned a flying alt-mode upon his arrival on Earth, the sudden and unexpected increase in sensory input from the more finely tuned and advanced aerial sensors present in his rotors had driven him half mad.  
  
As the buzzing dimmed, his chronometer clicked on and he started mentally at the time. Almost three Earth days? Was he injured? Was this deep medical stasis? Why would a medic place him into medical stasis though and then change the natural order of his boot up systems? His consciousness reached out in the darkness and came up only against his own firewalls.  
  
If he had been badly damaged to the point that a medic was synced to him and manually booting his systems one at a time, he would sense them just inside his firewalls. He was the only one here though and his firewalls felt intact, which only left him with even more questions and even fewer answers.  
  
His thermal systems finally booted up and he frowned. The temperature was quite a few degrees lower than normal. So that meant a cooled room, a location further north, or maybe some sort of underground bunker. His last gps coordinates were for Nevada, so he made those assumptions based on this. Had there been an attack? Was there even a bomb shelter located below the Autobot base? If something horrific had happened to him and he had been dropped into stasis for his own safety it was extremely unlikely that they would have moved him back to Maine before he was repaired. Ratchet was based out of Nevada after all, so it would take a real half-sparked processor to decide to send the broken mech _away_ from the medic and his medbay to be repaired.  
  
Unless Ratchet was...  
  
No. He mentally shook himself and deleted that line of thought processing before he worked himself up into any more of a hysteria than he was already in. He wouldn't think about that. Besides, Prime would _never_ let anything happen to Ratchet. Ratchet was fine.  
  
But that still left him here in the dark.  
  
He really, _really _didn't like the dark.__  
  
The buzzing was beginning to fade though, only now he was beginning to make out a peculiar whine that had previously been concealed by the buzz. Not a whine per say, but still not quite a keen, it was soft and persistent and faded in and out of his audial range. There was something about it that his processor just couldn't quite pinpoint and this bothered him in a core way that disturbed him. His processor was so perturbed that it simply refused to drop the line of processing. When the noise faded, he strained to pick it up again when it returned, which it inevitably did. When his audials localized it again, he strained to access his memory files to identify what it was about this noise that was so strangely important to him, but of course those files were still sealed off in an offline section of his processor.  
  
Was that his vocalizer making that sound?  
  
No. His was still powered down so that wasn't a possibility. He could feel the cold inactivity of those relays that would have otherwise been humming with charge. In a typical boot sequence, they wouldn't boot up until after his optics had. Visual feeds were infinitely more essential for one's safety than the ability to vocalize.  
  
Particular if you were a Cybertronian with multiple means of communicating.  
  
Except now of course, when he was stuck here surrounded by weird keens and buzzing darkness. If he could control his vents he would have huffed furiously in frustration, and maybe he was, but he couldn't access the systems that would enable him to tell. Actually, it was far more likely that they were running overtime and he was hyperventilating in a panic, completely giving away to anyone who was out there just how scared he really was.  
  
He really, _really_ didn't like that.  
  
He was so so busy sulking in his dark enclosure that if he could have moved, the sudden sliding sensation of someone syncing with his data port would have sent him flying through the roof. Assuming, of course, that this place even had a roof. An unfamiliar mind brushed up against his firewalls and he tensed mentally before he reached out tentatively and brushed up against the access request that pinged up against them. Whoever it was was waiting patiently for him to decide though, and he felt no actual pressure up against his firewalls as he pondered the access request.  
  
In the end it came down to one final question: did he want someone to talk to, or did he want to keep sitting here alone in the dark waiting for he knew not what?  
  
Loneliness (and no small part of a fear of the dark) won out in the end and he sent back the approvals and permissions to allow this presence through. The requests and replies zipped back and forth for several breems before the heavier pressure of another processor joined his. Only impressions bled across to him, as most of his neural net was still down, and confusing ones at that, as the other mind settled down and began organizing and syncing his systems for him so that he would properly boot up.  
  
Primus it was like a bomb had gone off in his files. He hadn't even realized what a fragmented mess his systems were in because the relays that would have given him the throbbing processor ache were down as well. Had he fallen into some sort of magnetic field of doom? Did this medic know what happened?  
  
Confidence and pride seeped through his awareness in response to his questioning nudge to the other mech. Medics usually pushed safety and reassurance until enough protocols had booted up to allow for proper communication to be established, except maybe if the medic was Ratchet. The little interaction he'd been present for (usually with Sideswipe on the receiving end) Ratchet would usually push a lot of pissed off irritation off of his field, especially if he thought the mech in question had done something exceptionally stupid to do that to himself.  
Which, naturally, went without saying when Sideswipe was on the slab.  
  
So at least he knew it wasn't Ratchet, or at the absolute very least, if it was, he hadn't done something so stupid to himself as to warrant an angry mental slap to the processor. Mentally, he vented again, then shrugged and settled down for the wait since there really was very little he could do about any of this until he was online. The other presence might not be a medic, but they were obviously comfortable with coding as they flew through his startup protocols and he felt the slow hum of his systems strengthen and build as more and more processes came online.  
  
That odd whine that continued to nag at the back of his processor was still there, and strangely, when he sent the other a questioning nudge he was mildly put off by the wave of sarcastic amusement that the mech sent back to him. What was so funny?  
  
He fumed in mild irritation, but perked as he felt more and more of his systems hum into life. Except, the whine was hitching now.  
  
Hitching?  
  
And that was definitely a hiccup.  
  
It was a human... crying... Or rather, it was a human trying not to cry and failing to succeed. As his memory banks began to load, he frantically cross-referenced the pitch and hertz of the sound to try and identify it. The presence within his firewalls felt almost mirthful as they watched him struggle to put his thoughts together into some sort of coherent pattern with most of his logic processes still offline.  
  
It was so familiar...  
  
It hiccuped...  
  
And sniffed...  
  
Then something new brushed the periphery of his sensors. A different sound. This one was softer, and higher pitched. Female? Safe. Reassuring. Shushing the whine. Trying to be strong. Not really though, because there was a tremor in the sound that a lesser pair of audials would most likely have missed. The type of tremor you heard in a frightened sparkling vocalizations.  
  
Not sparklings...  
  
Children.  
  
The word just seemed to materialize in his processor as the neural linkages powered on and more and more of his processing power revved to life.  
  
Raf.  
  
Miko.  
  
His spark clenched suddenly. They were the children. They had been in his cockpit. Had he crashed? Had he injured them? They must be hurt if they were crying. And Bumblebee... Oh Primus would Bumblebee ever be able to forgive him for letting Raf get hurt? He was even more fond of the tiny organic than he himself was of Cody.  
  
Static crackled in his audials and he realized his vocalizer was starting to boot up. The urge to apologize for whatever hurt he had caused the two children was already seeping out into his vocal protocols, and the sharp mirth at the edge of his awareness intensified.  
  
What was so funny?  
  
Sharp laughter rang in his audials as his sensors sharpened their focus. It was low and gravelly in a way that grated on his sensibilities, and the sound ricocheted and echoed in this chamber until it was a veritable cacophony of irritation. The whine intensified into a keen, and the soft reassurances of the female voice trembled and broke down as well.  
  
Blades was about to ask what was so funny but the words died in his processor without ever making it to his vocalizer when his optics finally flickered to life and he found them staring into the deep purple sigil branded onto a Seeker's chest.


End file.
